Casino Rama Resort rolled the dice in a bid to flip the script on organics collection. It's looking more and more like a winning bet.
The industrial, commercial and institutional (IC&I) sector generates almost 45 per cent of all food and organic waste in Ontario. The county, however, is not required to manage waste from that sector.
Casino Rama was looking to change that, so they approached the County of Simcoe in 2015 about starting a pilot project to separate organics.
Since then, the partnership has diverted over 1,650 tonnes of organics from landfill.
“We are very proud of the success of our organic waste diversion project,” says Natasha Borutski, public relations specialist with the resort. “As we ... see close to 8,000 visitors per day, it was important to us to find ways to reduce our carbon footprint.”
Casino Rama diverts almost 500 tonnes annually. This is more tonnage annually than residents divert from five of the county’s smallest member municipalities.
The resort started the project by creating a Green Committee Team dedicated to finding ways to implement sustainability across the property and approached the county with their plan.
“We consider the project a success. Eight years ago we were at a 13 per cent diversion rate for organics and we are now at around 50 per cent,” says Borutski.
The project, which includes having organic green bins placed in all food preparation areas, has allowed them to divert 533 tonnes of food waste over the past 12 months.
The Green Committee Team has also spearheaded other green initiatives, including making the transition to LED lighting throughout the property, introducing energy-efficient air-handling units, installing automatic water faucets and flushers in many of their public washrooms and implementing a more environmentally-friendly sheet and towel program in their hotel rooms.
“We are committed to continuing the waste diversion project and increasing sustainability across the property,” says Borutski.
“This is both important to our crew who continually look for more ways we can be environmentally efficient and more and more it’s becoming important to guests and travellers who look for environmentally-friendly destinations.”
Although the county is not responsible to manage waste from the IC&I sector, they still encourage businesses to participate in other ways.
“County council has directed that commercial businesses can participate in the curbside program with the same limits on green bin material as our residents,” says Rob McCullough, director of solid waste management with the County of Simcoe.
Commercial organics can also be dropped off at any county waste receiving facility on a fee-for-service basis.
This year, the county also rolled out textile collection. Special bags were sent out to every home (excluding Barrie and Orillia) to be filled with unused clothes, shoes, towels and linens.
All collected textiles were sent to a facility for sorting/grading, some are sent for reuse in Ontario and overseas. Some of the material is made into rags and acoustic fill. About 98% of material collected is able to be reused/recycled.
While final figures are not yet available concerning the success of the project, during the first week of textile collection over 45,000 kilograms of textiles were collected and diverted from landfills.
Visit your local Village Media website tomorrow for Part 3 of this series, where we look at what the county is planning for the future to divert more waste.
